Max pain // Cboe delayed data · as of Sep 12, 3:44 AM ET

SPX max pain

Spot (delayed)$7,657
Max pain · Wed, Sep 23$7,675+0.2% vs spot
Expected move (ATM straddle)±$126.95±1.7% by Wed, Sep 23
Put/Call OI1.7720K puts / 11K calls
Call wall$7,850largest call OI
Put wall$6,000largest put OI
IV3012.1%30-day implied vol
Net GEX−$123.7Mper 1% move

Event risk before this expiration: FOMC decision Wed, Sep 16 — macro releases historically overwhelm pinning effects; max pain reads weakest in event weeks.

Max pain levels

ExpiryMax painvs spotDTE
Mon, Sep 14$7,675+0.2%2d
Tue, Sep 15$7,675+0.2%3d
Wed, Sep 16$7,675+0.2%4d
Thu, Sep 17$7,675+0.2%5d
Fri, Sep 18$7,500-2.1%6d
Mon, Sep 21$7,700+0.6%9d
Tue, Sep 22$7,680+0.3%10d
Wed, Sep 23$7,675+0.2%11d

The writer-loss curve — where max pain comes from

spot7675500056106220683074408050$4.0B$0
■ put-side pain■ call-side painTotal payout option writers would owe at each settle price (both sides, all open interest, ×100 shares) — low settles hurt put writers, high settles hurt call writers. The minimum — 7675 — is the max pain price.

Open interest by strike · Wed, Sep 23

spot76755000695073257540765078003K3K
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)SPX open contracts per strike for Wed, Sep 23.

Open-interest change — building vs unwinding

Needs two observed snapshot days for this expiration — the comparison appears automatically once the next weekday snapshot lands. We diff real observations only; nothing is estimated.

Volume by strike · Wed, Sep 23

spot7675500069507325754076507800506506
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Today's traded contracts per strike (delayed).

Implied volatility by strike · Wed, Sep 23

spot63006650700073507700805044%8%
— call IV— put IVATM ≈ 11.5% · Quoted strikes only; illiquid wings with junk fits are dropped, not smoothed.

Gamma exposure by strike · Wed, Sep 23

spot665071257460760076757870+$184.0M$184.0M
Net dealer gamma per strike, in dollars per 1% move, assuming the standard convention (dealers long calls, short puts) — an assumption, not an observation. Above the amber flip level hedging tends to dampen moves; below it, to amplify them.

Greeks by strike · Wed, Sep 23

Call ΔCall ΘStrikeΓVegaPut ΘPut Δ
0.65-2.7476000.00215.18-2.74-0.35
0.63-2.7676100.00225.27-2.76-0.38
0.61-2.7676150.00225.31-2.76-0.39
0.59-2.7676250.00235.39-2.76-0.41
0.58-2.7676300.00235.42-2.76-0.42
0.56-2.7476400.00245.47-2.74-0.44
0.54-2.7276500.00255.51-2.72-0.46
0.51-2.6976600.00255.53-2.69-0.49
0.49-2.6576700.00265.53-2.65-0.51
0.47-2.6276750.00265.52-2.62-0.53
0.41-2.4677000.00265.39-2.46-0.59
0.34-2.2377250.00255.10-2.23-0.66
0.33-2.1877300.00255.03-2.18-0.68
0.27-1.9577500.00244.67-1.95-0.73
0.21-1.6377750.00214.10-1.63-0.79

Quoted contract greeks from the delayed feed (not modeled here); the highlighted row is nearest to spot. Showing 15 strikes around the money — all 60 are in the CSV. Δ per $1 of underlying · Θ per day · vega per IV point.

Stacked — layer the expirations

spot5800742575757685776078758K0
Call open interest per strike, stacked across the checked expirations — each color is one expiry. Strikes are pruned to the liquid center of each chain.

Max pain history — nearest expiry vs price

07-2808-0508-1308-2108-3109-0877997316
— max pain (nearest expiry)- - delayed closeOne point per snapshot day since 2026-07-28; unobserved days are gaps, not guesses.

All expirations combined — total open interest

spot600520064007200770083001.3M1.3M
■ calls (up)■ puts (down)Every expiration combined: 10.0M call contracts, 13.9M put contracts open.

Reading this honestly

Max pain is arithmetic, not prophecy: the settle price that would minimize what option writers pay out at expiration, computed from open interest alone. Prices sometimes gravitate toward heavy strikes into expiry — dealer hedging is a real flow — but the evidence that max pain predicts settlement better than chance is mixed, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Use it as a map of where positioning is stacked, next to the fundamentals and the earnings calendar, not as a target.

Data: Cboe delayed public feed (~15 minutes), refreshed here about every 15 minutes. Open interest itself updates once daily, before the open. Educational information, not investment advice.

Keep going: SPX workspace · max pain, explained in full · options profit calculator · GEX, defined · pin risk